


Eye of the Storm

by Lil_Lycanthropy



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Blood, Canon, M/M, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Storms, also I forgot to mention that in this AU thing he was trained in medical stuff, also a warning, and in a relationship with hamilton, except john laurens is alive, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 09:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8706607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lil_Lycanthropy/pseuds/Lil_Lycanthropy
Summary: Everything is too much for Alexander Hamilton as he tries to get his plan through congress, and the storm sets him over the edge. Luckily, John Laurens is there to help him get through the attack.





	

The light pattering of rain on the window escalated to a constant pounding, accentuated by flashes of lightning and the boom of thunder. While the rain was a welcome respite from the heat wave that plagued New York, it only meant trouble for Alexander Hamilton. The rain, wind, thunder, and lightning brought back repressed memories of a tropical storm years ago that devastated his hometown. Even now, every clap of thunder made him jump, the ever-present sound of rain giving him a headache. 

Alexander had been awake for days, and hadn’t eaten in longer. He was too busy writing, writing, writing. Getting his plan through congress was the most important thing now. 

Attempting to ignore the tempest, Alexshifted his attention back to the page he was working on, the words swirling around his head. With the storm, he couldn’t focus, couldn’t register the words. The letters massed together in his head in complete disarray and chaos, leading to confusion and a migraine.

When a large burst of thunder rumbled again, Alex jumped a foot off his chair. After a minute of trying, and failing, to calm himself, he turned back to his paper. He didn’t even realize how bad his hands were shaking until he knocked over the bottle of ink sitting on his desk. Black trickled down the crumpled paper, ruining the paragraphs he had written in the past four hours.

“No, no, no!” he muttered to himself, doing his best not to wake John in the other room. He was so _stupid_. How was he supposed to write with quivering hands? The most crucial piece of writing he had ever done in his career - no, his _life_ \- and he had just set his progress back by eight pages. Now he’d have to start over, recall everything he had gotten out of his head, focus on his persuasion techniques, ignore the storm, and it was too much, it was _too much_ , he couldn’t handle this anymore -

Thunder abruptly boomed and cracked, shaking the house. Alex collapsed onto the floor with a choked sob. It was too much, the storm, the paper, _life_. Suddenly he was seventeen again, clinging desperately to hope that took the form of a saturated table as the storm ravaged his home. Lightning continued to flash, and thunder came soon after, forcing Alex’s hands to clasp around his head. A vice-like pressure surrounded his chest, restricting his breathing. Spasms coursed through his body, and his eyes were damp. After a moment, he became vaguely aware of a voice calling his name and a throbbing in his hands, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he was on the floor, but it didn’t matter because he was going to _die_...

* * *

 John awoke to the sound of glass shattering followed by a dull _thud_ on the floor. 

“Alex?” he murmured, noticing the weather had worsened while he was asleep. Wind swayed the house, and there was still no reply. “Alex?” he called again, slipping out of bed onto the frigid floor. 

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he padded into the next room where he saw Alex on the floor, hands covering his ears, curled in tight on himself. “Alex!” John almost shouted and rushed over, kneeling down beside his unresponsive partner. Alex’s ink-covered hands clutched his head, his breaths raspy and short, eyes squeezed tight. Blood was streaming down his hands; John was confused for a moment before he noticed a fragmented ink bottle on the floor. 

Turning back to Alexander, he started softly calling out his name, trying to get the man to focus on him instead of whatever nightmare he was living in his mind. He reached up to Alex’s face, taking his trembling hands in John’s much more stable ones, and lifted them away from the former’s ears. Alexander’s eyes snapped open, yet instead of relaxing, his breathing quickened to almost inhuman speeds and John could feel Alex’s heartbeat through his own hands. 

“Hey, hey, hey, Alex, focus on me.” Alex glanced up, blinking rapidly, but seemed incapable of talking. After a moment’s hesitation, John said, “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” He carefully lifted Alexander to his feet, reassuring him with a, “You’re alright, I’ve got you,” and began shuffling him along to the bedroom while supporting most of his weight.

Placing Hamilton on the bed, he hurried out of the bedroom and fetched a bucket of warm water, along with some rags and bandages. 

When he returned, Alexander was still sitting unsteadily at the edge of the bed with head in his hands. “Hey, give me your hands,” John said, attempting to grab the appendages, but Hamilton just clung on to his hair tighter. Laurens tugged them again, removing them from his head. Alex surrendered to John’s incessant ministrations, eyes scrunched and breathing hard. 

Without delay, Johnstarted toflush his hands out with water, washing away the blood and ink. Alex shook harder and let out a sharp breath through his nose as the water aggravated his wounds, but bit his tongue. The lacerations on his hands were deep, and continued to bleed.

“I’ll have to stitch them, okay? Just hold still.” John said as he pressed a cloth to the wounds. He went and grabbed his medical kit from the bedside table and got to work, closing a total of seven cuts scattered across Hamilton’s hands and deftly wrapping them up.

When he finished, he placed a kiss on Alex’s forehead and put away the kit. Alexander was still shaking, and thunder crashed overhead. Both men jumped, and Alex gasped and couldn’t seem to get enough air.

John clambered into bed, shushing Alex. As he still wasn’t responding, Laurens cautiously slipped one arm around Alexander. Alex curled into the touch, and grasped onto John as more thunder shook the room. Once again, he began hyperventilating, his body seizing up completely.

He was so _scared_.

Laurens leaned back in bed, pulling Alexander onto his chest. He directed Alex’s face to look up at him. “Hey, hey - listen to me. You’re with me, you’re alive, you’re safe, and we’re okay. Can you tell me where you are?”

Alex’s eyes darted around the room, illuminated by lightning, and he breathed out a quick, “St. Croix,” that Laurens almost didn’t catch. 

Heart breaking a little bit, John replied, “No, you’re in New York. It’s 1791. You with me?” 

Alex took a deep breath before burrowing further into John’s chest with a sharp nod. Body still convulsing, John started rubbing his thumb across Alex’s shoulder, and carded the other one through his partner’s hair. 

Eventually, Alex began to relax. His breathing slowed and the shaking subsided. But each clap of thunder still made him react as if he had been physically struck. He was so far curled into Laurens, John wasn’t sure how he was still breathing. Laurens continued caring for Alexander, shushing him whenever he jumped, and holding him closer every time Alex’s panic seemed to rise.

After about an hour and a half, Alex had stopped flinching and his breathing was calm. He was finally asleep, along with John’s arm, still wrapped around Alex. Laurens wouldn’t dream of moving it, though; Alexander deserved an undisturbed rest.

* * *

 Laurens woke to a warm presence leaving his chest. Blinking blearily, his hand reached out and snagged his partner’s wrist. 

“Shh, go back to sleep. I have to work.”

John sat up and dragged Hamilton back into bed, kissing the top of his head. “What happened last night?” John questioned.

Alexander fumbled and tried to extricate himself from Laurens’ tangle of limbs. “Nothing... Just a little panicked, I guess. Don’t worry about it.” He tried to get out, to escape the impending conversation, but John held him fast. “I have stuff to do,” Alex whined. “Let me go.”

“Alex,” John urged, “this isn’t just something you can sweep under the rug. I understand if you don’t want to tell me everything, but at least let me know what I can do to help.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Alex said, giving up on trying to break free and turning around. “There’s just a lot of things I need to do, I need to get my plan through congress, but then I spilled my ink, and the storm...” 

Alex’s eyes glazed over and he didn’t speak for several minutes. His breath hitched, and John just held him tighter, letting him know it was okay.

“When I was seventeen, a hurricane blew through my town,” Alex started, and John ran his fingers through his hair, silently urging him to continue. Alex took a deep breath. “It was awful. There were bodies everywhere, people I knew. It destroyed everything - my home, my belongings, my _books_.” He shuddered at the memory and rested his head on John’s arm. “I guess I just don’t like storms,” he said defeatedly.

Laurens held him close, doing his best to soothe him, and he finally understood why Alex always shut himself off whenever there was even a light drizzle, why he could never appreciate the rain the way John did. 

Ultimately, the steady rise and fall of Laurens’ chest, along with the soothing fingers combing his hair, put Alex back to sleep.

_Alex deserves so much better,_ John thought as his consciousness soon left him as well. Alex was _his_ now, and that meant they had to stick it out, through thick and thin, no matter what.


End file.
